- General
- June 21, 2024
- 3 minutes read
U.S. Sanctions Kaspersky Execs Over Russia Ties
The U.S. government has sanctioned 12 executives of Kaspersky Lab, Russia’s foremost cybersecurity company, alleging “cooperation with Russian military and…
The U.S. government has sanctioned 12 executives of Kaspersky Lab, Russia’s foremost cybersecurity company, alleging “cooperation with Russian military and intelligence authorities in support of the Russian government’s cyber intelligence objectives.”
The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled the sanctions against Kaspersky Lab’s top brass this Friday, including the company’s chief operating officer, chief business development officer, chief legal officer, and human resources head. The sanctions prohibit all U.S. individuals and corporations from business dealings with the affected persons unless exempted by the Treasury Department’s Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
- Unusually, Eugene Kaspersky, the company’s eponymous founder and longtime chief executive, was not among the sanctioned persons.
The sanctions were announced shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning sales of Kaspersky Lab’s anti-virus software inside the U.S. and requesting all federal agencies to cease using it. The U.S. government has long accused Kaspersky Lab of having close ties to the Russian government, which the company has repeatedly denied.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a 2018 law banning Kaspersky Lab software on federal civilian and military computers. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. government warned domestic businesses against using Kaspersky Lab software, which the Russian company pushed back against, claiming the decision was “made on political grounds.”
- Kaspersky Lab denounced the latest sanctions against it and its executives, claiming the U.S. government “made its decision based on present geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns, rather than on a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services.”
Russian tech tycoon Eugene Kaspersky founded his eponymous cybersecurity company in 1997 and oversaw its growth into Russia’s largest IT security company. With 4,000 employees and $720 million in annual sales (according to its latest financial report), Kaspersky Lab is one of the few Russian technology companies prominent on the global stage.
Kaspersky was a software engineer with the Soviet military intelligence service before launching his cybersecurity company. The company’s success made Kaspersky one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals, with a $2bn fortune, according to Forbes.
